The outlook for La Grande High School’s marching band is as upbeat as the music it plays at football games and in parades.

The marching band is continuing to grow. Some of its members are being recognized by the Oregon Music Education Association for their musical skills and the band may soon have a sharper look.

The Tiger Boosters are closing in on their goal of raising $75,000 for the purchase of 125 badly needed new marching band uniforms. They will replace the present uniforms, which were purchased in 1998, at least two years before any of the current band members were born.

“They were meant to last 10 years. We have doubled their life expectancy and they are falling apart. It is time to update them,” said Chris Leavitt, the director of the marching band and LHS’s band teacher.

LHS band parent Tressa Seydel agrees that the uniforms need to be replaced.

“They are hanging by a thread,” said Seydel, who is part of a group of LHS marching band parents who are raising the funds as members of a branch of the Tiger Boosters.

Seydel and Heather Null are co-chairs of the fundraising project.

A total of $53,000 has been raised via contributions from the Tiger Boosters, the La Grande School District and La Grande High School. The fundraising group now must raise another $22,000. Seydel hopes the money can be raised via grants and private donations.

Seydel said the groups’ goal is to raise the money by September, which would allow time for the new uniforms to be purchased and ready by the start of the 2019-20 school year. Purchasing the new uniforms and getting them here will be time consuming, Seydel said, in part because bids will first have to be solicited by companies and the firm awarded the bid then must take measurements of students before creating the uniforms.

Leavitt said the new uniforms will be welcomed by band members.

“The students take pride in looking professional,” the band teacher said.

LHS junior Jebin Morris, who will be the band’s senior drum major in 2018-19, believes the new uniforms will impress the public.

“They will inspire people in the community to say, ‘Wow! That is a marching band,’” Morris said.

Seydel said the new uniforms will complement the marching band’s sound.

“We want them to look as good as they sound and represent LHS with every step,” she said.

Leavitt said the new uniforms will also impress judges when the band takes part in competitions. He explained that marching bands are partly judged on how they look.

Each new uniform package costs about $600. Every uniform package will be composed of a coat, jumpsuit, tall cylindrical cap, plume, raincoat, shoes, gloves, beret and more.

Seydel said the new uniforms, because of improvements made in fabrics and design, may save the band program on annual expenses such as dry cleaning and alterations. She said the savings could be used to support the band in other ways, including replacing aging instruments.

The marching band now has a little more than 100 members, about double the number it had eight years ago, Seydel said. She said 125 new band uniforms will soon be needed because a large number of La Grande Middle School students are expected to join the LHS marching band in the next two years.

The LHS marching band gives about a dozen performances a year at football games, non-sporting community events and the Pendleton Round-Up. The band has been performing at events like these for at least eight decades. Morris is among the students who like to read news clippings from as early as the 1930s about the band in scrapbooks at LHS.

“It has been interesting to learn about its history,” Morris said.

The junior has been struck by the military style of the school’s marching uniforms long ago.

“I wish I had been there to see it,” he said.

Morris will have graduated by the time the marching band receives its new uniforms, but that is not diminishing his enthusiasm for the project.

“I am sad that I will miss it but it will be cool to pass them (the new uniforms) on to the next generation,” Morris said.

For information on donating, contact Seydel at 541-910-4318 or tressaseydel@hotmail.com or Heather Null at 971-645-3248 or hnull@eoni.com.